Ever since I first came to be fascinated by resolute readings of the Tractatus there has been one problem that has always bothered me and led me to be suspicious of my own attraction to resolute readings. Here is the problem: If we are to take proposition 6.54 seriously, we must take seriously the idea that all the preceding propositions of the Tractatus have actually failed to express the sorts of philosophical insights that we, in our philosophical moods, imagined them to have been expressing. Those propositions were all nonsensical and as such they are to be discarded if we are to make philosophical progress.

Yet, resolute readers seem to be unable to discard certain propositions of the Tractatus. In reading the Tractatus resolutely, one is not only committing oneself to certain exegetical commitments about the text, but one is also committing oneself to a particular view of meaning. In particular, one must be committed to at least the following two ideas: 1. The context principle and 2. The austere conception of nonsense (both of which commitments are closely interrelated).

But these turn out to be the fundamental commitments of certain Tractarian propositions themselves. Among the propositions pertaining to the context principle are the following:

“It is impossible for words to occur in two different ways, alone and in the proposition.” (2.0122)

“[...] [O]nly in the context of the proposition has a name meaning.” (3.3)

“An expression has meaning only in a proposition. […]” (3.314)

Among the propositions pertaining to the austere conception of nonsense, we have the following:

“Logic must take care of itself. / A possible sign must also be able to signify. Everything which is possible in logic is also permitted […]” (5.473)

“We cannot give a sign the wrong sense.” (5.4731)

“Frege says: Every legitimately constructed proposition must have a sense; and I say: Every possible proposition is legitimately constructed, and if it has no sense this can only be because we have given no meaning to some of its constituent parts. […]” (5.4733)

So it seems that resolute readers want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to be able to discard these propositions of the Tractatus (in accordance with proposition 6.54), yet at the same time they want to hold on to the fundamental commitments of some of those very same propositions. This seems to be a highly unstable position.

II.

I was very excited to see that at the very outset of the paper, The Cardinal Problem of Philosophy, prof. Kremer identifies this as an accusation against resolute readings and you propose to defend resolute readers from such charges. Quoting him:

“[…] has sometimes misled critics into thinking (1) that on their view [Conant / Diamond] every proposition of the Tractatus is consigned irredeemably to the category of “nonsense” … Critics then seize on the apparent conflict with (1′) their apparent reliance on certain passages of the Tractatus in arguing for their interpretation … However, it is clear from much of their later work that (1″) on their view at least some propositions of the Tractatus can be redeemed as making sense, once we have learned the lessons of the Tractatus … (1″) is actually a necessary consequence of the account of philosophical confusion and the resulting philosophical nonsense, inspired by Diamond and Conant, which I develop below. On this account, philosophical nonsense derives from a kind of equivocation in which we try to make one word conform to two uses at once. Once we become aware of this confusion, we can decide to use the word in one of these two senses. Our propositions, so understood, will then make sense and may even be true – but they will be incapable of doing the philosophical work that we earlier confusedly wanted them to do.”

So, according this view, certain propositions of the Tractatus (which ones? how do you know?), after they have been discarded in the ladder climbing exercise, can once again be redeemed as making sense; only they are now purged of their apparent philosophical significance. So, the discarding of these propositions that is advocated in proposition 6.54 is only the first step towards redeeming those propositions once again in an innocent (non-philosophical) manner.

III.

Very well. But I want to ask: how is this actually done? In the case of an actual proposition such as one of the propositions that I listed in the above section, how can we identify (a) the philosophical work that that proposition was supposed to do and (b) the manner in which that proposition can be purged of its alleged philosophical significance and be redeemed as true in an innocent manner?

The Cardinal Problem of Philosophy, is prof. Kremer’s answer to these questions that I have just posed. However, he only answers the question with respect to the propositions concerning the saying / showing distinction; that problem is the cardinal problem of philosophy. He gives us an analysis of (a) the philosophical work that such propositions were supposed to do, (b) why those propositions cannot do the work that they are supposed to do (because they result from an equivocation in our use of the word “show”) and (c) how the saying / showing distinction can be redeemed in an innocent manner.

But what about those other propositions that I listed above? Surely, those propositions pertaining to the context principle and the austere conception of nonsense are much closer to the heart of a resolute reader than the propositions expounding a distinction between what can be shown and what can be said. How can those be vindicated? If not, surely the resolute reading is just as much of a boggle as the standard reading.

6 comments:

I think you're reading 6.54 more strictly than any of the main Resolute Readers does: Conant, Kremer, and Diamond all think there are some propositions of the book that are just straightforwardly true. They generally call them the "frame" propositions, the ones LW told von Ficker to pay special attention to in his famous letter: the ending and the preface.

And they don't all agree about which those are: Conant has said that 6.534 is straightforwardly true, for example, where Kremer has claimed it's nonsense (since we can't actually tell what does or does not make sense in the way the prop presumes we can; we can't just not say nonsense by willing to do so).

As an extreme case: Nearly all of the resolute readers think that some of the propositions in the preface are veiled nonsense of the sort we find in the body of the text. For example, the preface tells us that the book's value lies in thoughts being expressed in it -- this is something the Resolute reading normally needs to massage away. But the preface also contains sentences which are surely not nonsense, such as the one thanking Russell and Frege for stimulating LW's thinking, or the remark about not giving sources because he doesn't care whether he's creative or not. And these aren't doing any metaphysical pseudo-work, either: they're just normal sentences you find in a book's preface.

I think this is what at least Kremer (and I'm pretty sure Conant and Diamond et al, too) want to say about things like the context principle and the austere view of nonsense: they're just straightforwardly true things LW says about our practice. It might seem, at some point in the Standard Reading, as if they were giving us some deeper sort of insight into the nature of Reality or Thought or somesuch. But they aren't doing that.

Luckily, prof. Kremer has office hours on Thursday morning before the workshop. I'll take my question to him and see what he has to say (I'll post his response too).

My thought is that the issue of "frame" propositions is not what is in question here if by frame propositions we mean the propositions that tell us how to read the work itself. Frame propositions are, as you say, the ones that LW tells Ficker to pay close attention to: the ending at the preface. (e.g. 6.54 is probably a frame proposition). I think that I'm talking about something different. In my original post, I said:

"In reading the Tractatus resolutely, one is not only committing oneself to certain exegetical commitments about the text, but one is also committing oneself to a particular view of meaning. In particular, one must be committed to at least the following two ideas: 1. The context principle and 2. The austere conception of nonsense (both of which commitments are closely interrelated)."

The former kinds of commitments (exegetical) are brought out by frame propositions. But the latter kinds of commitments (substantive) are not brought out by frame propositions. The latter commitments are not simply views on how to read this book, but they are views on meaning and nonsense in general. These views are brought out by the Tractarian propositions (like the ones I mentioned). What is the status of these propositions?

One might want to say, as you suggest, that these propositions do not express any "views" about meaning or nonsense or anything else; rather, "they're just straightforwardly true things about our practice." But then the onus is on you to explain how this is different than saying that the propositions give us some insight into the nature of reality? What’s the difference between being true of our practice and being true of reality? This distinction would need to be fleshed out.

In any case, that’s not Kremer’s route. If you look at the quote from Kremer, he clearly suggests that these propositions need to be put through a two stage process of cleansing. In the first stage, the proposition needs to be recognized as nonsensical due to an equivocation. And in the second stage, we need to let go of the equivocation in order to redeem the proposition (but it can no longer do the philosophical work that it was originally supposed to do).

This does sound a lot like what you just said if we make the following equations:1. The philosophical work that the proposition was originally supposed to do = giving us a deep insight into the nature of reality, and 2. The innocent work that the proposition can now do, once redeemed = telling us something that is straightforwardly true of our practice.

But as usual, the devil is in the details. And no details are provided in Kremer’s paper regarding how we might put such propositions through such a process of cleansing.

I'm not trying to specifically criticize Kremer's paper or anything like that. I have never seen anybody give a satisfactory response to that question. In effect, my question has this level of generality - "how do we climb the Tractarian ladder?" - it is like I am asking that question.

Any resolute reading it seems to me will suffer from this large explanatory gap. "Climbing the Tractarian ladder" sometimes looks like a very mysterious activity in so far as I cannot even imagine how to go about it.

Conant and Diamond are, of course, hyper-conscious of this very problem. But they undercut the problem by saying that it is not the place of a commentator or anybody else to say how this can be done; each reader must do the work on his own. (In fact, this craving for an explanation of how to climb the ladder may just one of the rungs of the ladder itself.)

“A resolute reading is better thought of as a *program* for reading the book… A resolute reading does not aim to provide a skeleton key for unlocking the secrets of the book in a manner that would transform the ladder into an elevator; so that one just has to push a button (say, one labeled ‘austere nonsense’) and one will immediately be caused to ascend to Tractarian heights, without ever having to do any ladder-climbing on one’s own,” (Conant, Diamond, p.2)"

But I don't know if this is supposed to put a stop to questions such as mine.

"In effect, my question has this level of generality - "how do we climb the Tractarian ladder?" - it is like I am asking that question."

I suspect that this is the sort of question which does not receive an answer, but which is seen to vanish: the way you do it is just to do it. There's nothing absolutely helpful to be said here, though saying various things could be helpful to various people in getting them to see how to go on.

"But then the onus is on you to explain how this is different than saying that the propositions give us some insight into the nature of reality? What’s the difference between being true of our practice and being true of reality? This distinction would need to be fleshed out."

My capital letters were important: I want "insights into Reality" to be something we can only ever seem to have, something that "metaphysicians" think they want. It's not a real sort of insight, and so there's not really any such thing as being True to Reality. So there's not a real contrast to be had, here: if the context principle is true, it's just true in the way ordinary knowledge-claims are true.

Bu this is an area I find puzzling: I feel equally compelled to say both that I can't be in a position to have any special sort of knowledge, and that there are certain claims (such as the context principle) which I do know, and which others have denied, and which nobody seems to think to say outside of philosophy. I want that knowledge to *not* be special in any way -- I want it to be like knowing my name, or that one shouldn't fart in an elevator. I don't want any specially "philosophical" knowledge, but it's hard to see how I can avoid admitting that this is what I have. But if that is what something like the context principle represents, then it seems fair to demand arguments for it, and against those who would deny it, and then the whole metaphysical whirligig seems to have been restarted. "Overcoming" metaphysics is hard!

I really need to finish those papers. I get to finish editing two term papers and drive four hours to Chicago today. Fun times! And I haven't packed yet!